The story is anything but bland. As Jon Hilsenrath, David Enrich, and David Solomon write:

A year into a credit crisis that started with troubled mortgages to sketchy borrowers, the financial system is reeling once again, casting a pall over a widening array of financial institutions just days after history-making efforts by policy makers to contain the problem.

With the share prices of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and other financial firms on a roller coaster, the crisis could be entering a critical stage.

The Federal Reserve has already slashed interest rates to counteract a deepening credit freeze and instituted its broadest expansion of lending facilities since the Great Depression to keep financial markets functioning. Over the weekend, the nation’s two main mortgage finance firms — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — were placed under government control.

This is not a reality show we’re talking about. This is actuality.

On down in the analysis, the WSJ trio hint of a possible future in which private-equity moneybags will be taking over our banking system and will operate it with even less regulation than now exists. They note that even foreign governments are starting to shy away from plunging their money into faltering U.S. institutions — they’re already too heavily invested in them. The story continues:

Private-equity firms face different hurdles [in plunging their billions into “rescues” that will make them billions more]. If they own too much of an institution that accepts deposits, they would open themselves to federal regulation as bank-holding companies. The rules limit them to less than 25% of the voting stock of a regulated depository institution.

Since April’s large cash infusions into Washington Mutual Inc. and National City Corp., private-equity firms — with some $450 billion in untapped funds, according to London-based data provider Preqin — haven’t made any major investments in capital-starved banks.

Executives from such firms as Carlyle Group and Blackstone Group have been using the credit crunch to lobby the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Reserve to allow them to own bigger stakes of financial firms without having to face regulation.

Well, at least this controversy is over. Can there be any doubt now that Sarah Palin is more than qualified to be vice president? After all, she says she is. From Jim Rutenberg‘s press release:

“I’m ready,” Ms. Palin answered without any hesitation in an interview with ABC News on Thursday, saying she had felt no doubt about accepting Senator John McCain’s offer to run as his vice-presidential nominee.

You want the real scoop-sifting, go to Slate‘s Jack Shafer, who crafted the best-angled lede:

Without being smarmy about it or unfurling gotcha questions, ABC News anchor Charles Gibson demonstrated that he knows volumes more about national security and foreign policy than does Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Hundreds of workers at the city’s embattled child-welfare agency are worrying about their own welfare as they face the possibility of layoffs stemming from a plan to overhaul the way it protects kids, sources told The Post yesterday.

The plan, called “Improved Outcomes for Children,” is expected to dismantle an entire division of 600 workers, which could mean layoffs for 200 to 400 employees who cannot be absorbed within the Administration for Children’s Services or the other city agencies, officials said.

Anne E. Kornblut provides some truly unscripted material on Palin — her piece combines a Palin campaign appearance with the troops with the ABC interview:

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Sept. 11 — Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.